The Little Storm That hit.

Livingston, how was your commute for the November 15th snow storm?

I could begin to complain to you about my 10 hour drive from the Bronx to Livingston which started at 2 in the afternoon, but I did enough of that on facebook and texts while sitting in the traffic and hardly moving for 10 hours (did I mention 10 hours) yesterday.

I will give you my honest opinion though. Very simple: Complete Epic Failure of State and Local leaders to make sure that adequate preparations were made for this storm.

For 4 days this storm was forecasted and the predictions were that it would be a few inches. Ok, so prepare for a few inches, because that would have been better than what I saw. What I witnessed on my ride home yesterday were no salters, no plows, and about 6 inches of slushy wet snow. I sat for 3 hours on a ramp that inclined to go to the George Washington Bridge, another 2 hours just to exit 280 and return back to the turnpike, and possibly the most disheartening was the nearly 2 and a half hours I was on JFK from 24 just to get to Cedar. The rest of the time I was moving, if that is what you call it. In all what usually takes me 1 and a half hours took, did I mention this, took 10 hours. 10 hours I never left my car, didn’t eat and I roughed it along with many others drivers.

NJ Transit bus riders were taking 3 hour delays and getting locked out of Port Authority, the trains were up to 90 minutes late and then when they pulled into South Orange there a was nowhere for Livingston people to go because South Orange Ave was a mess. I would like to give a big shout out to the workers at South Orange Performing Arts Center for allowing commuters that included my wife, to hang out there while trying to figure out how to get home.

Back to my statement: Complete Epic Failure of State and Local Governments.

I would like to stress that as a public employee I would never place blame on anyone out on the streets working their rears off to try and get a job done. I am more focused on leadership, because they are the people who make decisions. Driving though 2 states, highways and local streets, I saw very few plows and salters. I heard the mayor of a large city nearby say that the storm hit during rush hour, there were too many cars on the streets, and that he didn’t want to point fingers or place blame and that he will take this as a learning experience. I didn’t realize this was this first winter storm to hit our area in recent times. Sarcasm!

Maybe the leaders in our area just under estimated the storm? I do agree with the mayor of the large city in that there were entirely too many cars on the roads and drivers who just could not drive the cars in these conditions, which was evident by the 6 cars I saw stranded on JFK. Our roads were a bit of a free for all but our police had a busy night dealing with accidents, stranded vehicles, police matters, and blocking off roads so the plows could do their job, when they weren’t getting stuck.

It is now Friday morning, the morning snow has just stopped falling, the roads are still messy and the commutes are still rough. Not bad for the first winter storm of the season. If anyone is interested in a pretty accurate amateur weather person, check out Tri-State Weather on facebook. The guy has been pretty spot on for the last couple of years. He will stress you with his forecasts but he is usually right. He tells it to you before the weather man on the news does and will explain how he came to his forecast.

All righty then Livingston be safe out there, take your time, and remember that spring is only 5 months away.

Have a good weekend.